6.5 creedmoor Barrel lengths

[PAcondor]

Does anyone have real life experience with a 16inch barrel on a 6.5 creedmoor?
Looking for information to help influence my decision.
This gun will be for hunting in the east, and mostly spent on the range with on sandbags and shooting in real life hunting scenarios.

600 yards will probably be the furthest shooting I would do with this gun on a regular basis.
Don’t worry I don’t consider myself a good enough shooter to ethically take that shot on a game animal. So that is out of the question.
Thanks for the input.

 

[Seeknelk]

Does anyone have real life experience with a 16inch barrel on a 6.5 creedmoor?
Looking for information to help influence my decision.
This gun will be for hunting in the east, and mostly spent on the range with on sandbags and shooting in real life hunting scenarios.

600 yards will probably be the furthest shooting I would do with this gun on a regular basis.
Don’t worry I don’t consider myself a good enough shooter to ethically take that shot on a game animal. So that is out of the question.
Thanks for the input.

I have a T3X that's cut to 16.5" absolutely love it at that length here in MT.
We've only killed two deer and an antelope so far. 475 yards on one muley buck, 325 in another buck, thru leg knuckle, quartering- to. 140 eldm worked perfectly on both.
Getting 2700ish with the 140 and Norma URP.
Stays above 1800fps beyond 600. I'd not go longer for hunting back east that's for sure.

 

[PAcondor]

I have a T3X that's cut to 16.5" absolutely love it at that length here in MT.
We've only killed two deer and an antelope so far. 475 yards on one muley buck, 325 in another buck, thru leg knuckle, quartering- to. 140 eldm worked perfectly on both.
Getting 2700ish with the 140 and Norma URP.
Stays above 1800fps beyond 600. I'd not go longer for hunting back east that's for sure.

Thanks for the clear response. This will be my shortest barrel length I’ll own. I was flirting with the idea of a 20 inch but I’m turning against that. If I want to shoot or hunt with a longer barrel I’ll just grab one of my old rifles I guess.

 

[chutinlead]

The 18" barrel on my first sig cross was anemic. Load development sucked till I got right near the max charge and it finally settled down. I almost rebarreled it to a 6CM and would have been happy with 16-20", but I sold the rifle and built a full custom.

 

[LG1]

I had my T3X cut down to 17", but that was to add a 6" suppressor. Shoots great. If going with that short of a barrel and non-suppressed, balance will be outta whack in my mind not to mention increased noise from a short barrel.

 

[TxxAgg]

Does anyone have real life experience with a 16inch barrel on a 6.5 creedmoor?
Looking for information to help influence my decision.
This gun will be for hunting in the east, and mostly spent on the range with on sandbags and shooting in real life hunting scenarios.

600 yards will probably be the furthest shooting I would do with this gun on a regular basis.
Don’t worry I don’t consider myself a good enough shooter to ethically take that shot on a game animal. So that is out of the question.
Thanks for the input.

I have 3 Tikkas set up right now. I much prefer the 16" barrels on the 223 and 308 compared to the 21" 6.5cm.

With a suppressor the shorter barrels are nice.

 

[ShakoMako]

I sent a T3X 6.5c barrel off to get cut to 18” for pairing with a SICO Scythe ti. based on reading here and ballistics calculator that provides ethical performance to 550 yds which is 100-150 yds more than I would shoot on game. I think 2” more would still perform on game to 475-500 and be great on targets to your desired range.

 

[ScreamingPotato]

18" factory ammo speed for comparison if it's useful to you FWIW. This is about of a Bergara.
Hornady 147gr ELD-M: 2544 fps average
Hornady 143gr ELD-X: 2546 fps average
Norma 143gr Bondstrike: 2540 fps average
Hornady Superformance 129gr SST: 2821 fps average
American Whitetail 129gr Interlock: 2661 fps average

 

[PAcondor]

I plan on getting a suppressor for the rifle as well but that will be in due time. The gun I’m looking at comes stock with a 16 inch barrel. So I’m trusting the company did there part when it came to testing. I’m sure they did.

 

[ShortMagFan]

I’ve got a TC Encore with a 16.25” barrel in 6.5 creed.

It’s stupid short even with the Banish Backcountry suppressor.

Have not done much velocity testing but what i have done leads me to believe velocity loss is pretty significant. I’m shooting Copper Creek’s 100gr TTSX load and am getting 2830 fps. I have not chrono’d in a 22 or 24 inch barrel so don’t have a point of comparison but seems like that little bullet ought to be screaming out of a normal length barrel

The rifle killed two trophy whitetail in December and a trophy hog today. The white tails were 80 and 120 yards but the hog was well over 200

The bigger of the two whitetail was shot at a hard angle so I recovered the bullet. Perfect Barnes performance. The other whitetail was a double lung pass through. I did not inspect the boar today to assess bullet damage. Only know he dropped at the shot

 

[jhm2023]

I was getting right around 2,800 with 127gr LRX from an 18" 6.5 Creed. I sold it for a 22" version of the same gun and get just a touch over 2,900 with it. I personally think 20-22" is the sweet spot for most hunting cartridges with a suppressor, but I have entertained the idea of dropping back down to a 16 or 18" and loading absolute hammers to bring the velocity back up to normal.